Vikings' last No. 3 draft pick, Jim Dunaway, was a hit - for Bills

The Vikings owned the No. 3 overall pick only once before this year's draft. And it won't take much for them to do better this time.

The guy never played for Minnesota. He never even signed with the Vikings.

Instead, he went to the Buffalo Bills and became a perennial American Football League all-star selection - although decades later, he was accused though never convicted of murdering his former wife before losing a wrongful-death civil suit.

Yes, it was O.J. Simpson's teammate.

Jim Dunaway, a Mississippi defensive tackle, was taken No. 3 by the Vikings in the 1963 draft, which actually was held Dec. 3, 1962. Problem was, days earlier the Bills of the old American Football League also had drafted him, in the second round.

The Vikings had rated Dunaway the top lineman in college football, according to Pioneer Press accounts of the story.

"He should develop into an all-pro tackle some day," Vikings chief scout Joe Thomas said then.

In the second round, the Vikings picked University of Minnesota star lineman Bobby Bell, who also had been drafted by an AFL team, the Dallas Texans, in the seventh round.

"You've landed the two best linemen in the country," then-Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Skorich said at the time.

Signing them would be a different matter.

Those were the pre-merger days, and the upstart AFL was intent on competing with the established NFL for high-end talent.

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Dunaway was a hunting enthusiast, according to the Pioneer Press, so then-Vikings coach Norm Van Brocklin assured him Minnesota would be ideal for the Columbia, Miss., product.

"It's a great honor being chosen on the first round," Dunaway said at the time. "In fact, I'm so shook I don't know what to say. I'm sure my wife and I would enjoy Minnesota hunting."

It didn't take long for Bell to sign with the Texans, who in 1963 became the Kansas City Chiefs.

On New Year's Eve, Van Brocklin and Vikings general manager Bert Rose met with Dunaway in New Orleans, where Ole Miss was playing in the Sugar Bowl. They met again after the game on New Year's Day.

Dunaway also met with a Bills contingent. The Vikings didn't know the Bills also had a room at their hotel - on their floor - registered to Mississippi line coach Bruiser Kinard.

The Vikings reportedly had offered Dunaway $54,000 over two years. They were even willing to give him a "personal service" contract, meaning he would be paid in full even if he were cut. The Bills reportedly offered more than $60,000 over the same time period.

Dunaway reportedly didn't give the Vikings a chance to counter.

Later Jan. 1, Dunaway called Rose and Van Brocklin at their hotel and said: "You can call it off. I have committed myself to Buffalo."

Dunaway went on to play nine years with the Bills, making the 1965-68 AFL all-star Games, then a final year with the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Bell went on to play 12 years with the Chiefs as a defensive end and linebacker, making the 1964-69 AFL all-star Games and 1970-72 Pro Bowls and eventually the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Imagine what the Vikings' famed Purple People Eaters defense would have been with them.

Then again, the Vikings didn't have to deal with the tragedy that hit decades later.

Dunaway was back in the news in 1998, when his ex-wife, Nonniel, was found dead in her swimming pool, drowning after being hit in the head and left unconscious in the water. At the time, the Hattiesburg American reported, Dunaway was appealing a divorce ruling that gave her the family's 800 acres of property, $1,800 in alimony and half his NFL pension.

A grand jury failed to indict Dunaway on criminal charges. But his children sued him and won more than $500,000 in 2002.

"I'm extremely disappointed," Jim Dunaway said after the verdict, according to the American. "I had absolutely nothing to do with Nonniel's death. I looked both my children in the eye and told them that."